Film Reviews
Phoenix review - Norwegian family tragedy with an autobiographical slantSaturday, 14 September 2019
“You’re so meticulous,” says Astrid (Maria Bonnevie) to her teenage daughter Jill (impressive newcomer Yvla Bjørkaas Thedin) as they create a batik artwork together at the kitchen table. Little son Bo (Casper Falck-Løvås) looks on as he munches a jam sandwich. A happy domestic scene? Anything but. “Meticulous” isn’t even really a compliment, coming from this chaotic, mentally fragile mother. Read more... |
The Shock of the Future review - for the music nerdsSaturday, 14 September 2019
The Shock of the Future is for anyone who's watched a music biopic and thought "that's not how it works!" Directed and co-written by Marc Collin of Nouvelle Vague fame, it's perhaps the most realisitic film about recording music ever made. Read more... |
Hustlers review - strip club crime paysFriday, 13 September 2019
When did Dorothy (Constance Wu) really want to be a stripper? Maybe it’s when she looks with love at Ramona (Jennifer Lopez) during her strutting set piece dance, as she descends to a carpet of cash. Read more... |
Honeyland review - tipping nature's balanceFriday, 13 September 2019
Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov’s new documentary, Honeyland, is a lament for a vanishing world. Captured with the delicacy of honeycomb, it focuses on the last wild beekeeper in Europe. Hatidze Muratova lives in rural Macedonia on a craggy farm without running water or electricity. Read more... |
Downton Abbey review – business as usualThursday, 12 September 2019
Despite the fact that the Downton Abbey 2015 Christmas special wrapped the series up with a seemingly watertight bow, a cinema offering of Julian Fellowes’ much-loved creation was perhaps inevitable. And so virtually all of the series cast and a few new ones descend upon the fictitious Yorkshire pile for more misadventures upstairs and down. Read more... |
The Shiny Shrimps review - worth the plungeSaturday, 07 September 2019
Whoever thought of crossing the social conscience of Pride with the sporting acumen of Dodgeball? Out of this unlikely union comes The Shiny Shrimps, a joyous dive into the world of gay water polo. Read more... |
It Chapter Two review – time to stop clowning aroundThursday, 05 September 2019
Just two years after It Chapter One became the most successful horror film ever made, Pennywise the Dancing Clown is once again giving the American town of Derry absolutely nothing to laugh about. But this time around it’s audiences who may feel unable to enjoy the irony of a killer clown. For Chapter Two feels like a pointless, nay horrific case of déjà vu. Read more... |
A Million Little Pieces review - addict's anaemic redemptionSunday, 01 September 2019
The high, crackhead days of James Frey (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) are over in five adrenalized minutes, as he dances naked to the Smashing Pumpkins, then tumbles insensibly backwards from a ledge. Read more... |
Memory: The Origins of Alien review - a study of the sci-fi horror classicFriday, 30 August 2019
Forty years after Alien made a star out of Sigourney Weaver, comes a documentary that goes into forensic detail about the movie’s original writer and monstrous imagery but barely mentions its lead actor despite the fact that her portrayal of Ripley broke all the stereotypes of women in sci-fi. Read more... |
The Souvenir review – Joanna Hogg's most emotionally wrenching film yetThursday, 29 August 2019
Joanna Hogg’s melancholy autobiographical drama The Souvenir cuts too close to the bone. Read more... |
The Informer review - tough but tin-eared B-movieThursday, 29 August 2019
If it wasn’t for bad luck, Pete Koslow (Joel Kinnaman) wouldn’t have any luck at all. Being an Iraq special forces veteran jailed for protecting his wife in a bar fight seems wretched karma enough. Read more... |
Hail Satan? review - the detail of the devilSaturday, 24 August 2019
As Penny Lane’s documentary shows, America and Satanism have a long history. Read more... |
A Faithful Man review - an atypical romanceSaturday, 24 August 2019
There were some early warning signs that A Faithful Man might be another box-ticking French romcom. The poster of two women kissing one man, his bemused look in the middle. The lethargic narration referencing childhood and the mysteries of the female mind. Here we go again. Read more... |
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark review - mild-mannered nightmaresSaturday, 24 August 2019
Guillermo del Toro considered directing this adaptation of Alvin Schwartz’s bestselling campfire tales, and his sensibility can still be discerned in its kind sort of fantasy and concern with outsiders. Read more... |
Pain and Glory review - masterful meditation on age and artWednesday, 21 August 2019
The Almodovar who made his name as an all-out provocateur in the Eighties considers that wild art’s becalmed far side, in this quietly wonderful meditation on where it’s left him. Read more... |
Transit review - existential nightmares for a German refugeeSaturday, 17 August 2019
If you’re looking for escapism from anxieties about Brexit, the worldwide refugee crisis and rising authoritarianism, Christian Petzold’s Transit is not going to provide comfort. Read more... |
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